SDKs, Zunes, and Consumers

I should preface this post as being my opinion, not the finalized words of Microsoft.

A number of folks have asked about a Zune SDK. For the uninitiated, this is shorthand for software interfaces that would enable developers and hobbyists to extend the Zune experience.

I've answered below that we *don't* have an SDK at this time, but wanted to spend a bit more time on why we don't. My brief answer is that this time we really needed to focus, and wanted stability over all else for a truly consumer-grade experience. But I don't want to be too glib.

After all, extensibility is Microsoft's core competency and strategy, especially in Windows. If not for the zillions of third party developers building apps and extensions for Windows, the product would be much less interesting, less innovative, and very least-common denominator. Sadly, PCs can be complicated and sometimes unstable primarily because of this strategy. Bad third party drivers can make our lives hell, spyware can clog the pc and slow it down, and test matrices become impossibly large. All those interfaces come at a price.

But extensibility is the core value of a PC. If not, we'd all be running Wang word processing appliances in our houses (kids, look it up). Both the hardware and software of the PC can be customized in a million ways for a million uses. So PC users happily trade off stability and simplicity. No doubt about it; the PC is a platform.

Consumer electronics are different. Users buy a box that does a very small number of things and can't be hacked (easily ;)). Your CD player has one function (play CD). Consumers expect these devices to work, work, work, and be simple, simple, simple. Of course, sometimes they're not, but you'll agree on average they are both more reliable and simpler than your PC. Crashy televisions or DVD players would rapidly fail in the mainstream consumer marketplace. Consumers expect CE products to be solutions, not platforms.

Zune and iPods are an interesting new kind of case. They're not PCs (mainstream users don't want to extend them, at least not much. They want them to include everything out of the box - in other words, a solution. But on the other hand, some very innovative things have happened via the platform aspects of mp3 players (poster child = Podcasting).

So it's complicated. For now, I think the immediate need to is to deliver an end to end solution from service to client to device, and build out the solution with everything the end user needs. Initially, the main Zune platform is hardware accessories - and you'll see some impressive moves there. But we definitely won't forget the innovation a platform can bring in and will be looking at where "opening up" can enhance Zune - as long as it doesn't compromise the user experience.